Thursday, August 23, 2018 – 17.50 miles

Last night I slept badly, bothered by the flapping of my tent in the wind and how it was merging with the crackling of my air mattress to create a cloud of evil over the campsite. Sorry to my fellow campers.

The wind continued strong and cold throughout the day. It reminded me of autumn and I got into a nostalgic mood, thinking about collecting acorns and fallen leaves as a kid.

In the afternoon, I realized that the smoke was clearing. Good job wind, keep it up!! Unfortunately the scenery wasn’t worthy of the first clear day in weeks. eTrails noted a clearcut. Thank goodness I didn’t miss that one!

I took a short side trip to ‘Airplane Meadows’, which contains plane wreckage from an old crash.

The trail passed Urich Cabin, pretty but supposedly riddled with mice, and its outhouse, always appreciated. The stream passing the cabin looked gross with scum on the surface.

From looking at the map, I wasn’t expecting camping to be easy today. The area was ledgy and finding a sheltered spot had to be a consideration. Around suppertime I ended up at a spring surrounded by established campsites, but their state was beyond the pale. One was littered with toilet paper. One had toothpaste stains and a suspicious wet spot. One had a shallow, feces-exposed cathole a few metres away. The fourth was already occupied. After deciding that camping in any of those places was impossible, and that I hate people, I searched up and down the trail until I found a stealth site. It’s tilted to the extent that my water bottle rolls across the floor, but useable.